Doctors, hey,....
Well, by the time that this is a concern, I should have all my schooling done and loans paid off (and kids out of the house, and....). Either way, I'd be willing to do a stint up there... purely to serve those who may need my services, that is ... I wouldn't have any personal interest or anything...

the situation might change when Bigelow has ready Nautilus and the technology of inflatables and after the ASP is won too. Then there would be the first orbital space hotel. The next step could be a lunar hotel based on Bigelow's technology or based on additionaly developments by Bigelow Aerospace or other new technologies available then. May be that before a lunar hotel there will be a geostationary hotel.

Bieglow's Nautilus will be a breakthrough that will be seen in the news and the tv - in Germany too, Stefan, I think. This breakthrough will be convincing as time goes by and it will open up a technological way to lunar hotels.

Reasonable people already know that lunar hotels are possible. The trouble is that we are no closer to building real lunar hotels than we were in 1970. No new rendering, no matter how realistic, will change that. That boy has cried wolf too often already.

I don't remember the big talk of the 1960s and 1970s about an imminent space age with everyone involved--I wasn't even alive then,--but I do know that was when space was done only by government, a single bureaucracy that did not permit competition and only allowed its elite to go. Have a little more faith this time around. These guys are actually working on bringing it down, not just talking about it.

Not true my friend. What about Bigalow and his economy hotels in Space. He already has two of them orbiting at 300 miles up in space. The Genesis I and II. They are building them in a plant in North Las Vegas, NV and they are for real and they are of a new and inovative design. You can find info on: http://www.bigelow.com or on my blog at: http://moni2.blogspot.com

Check your facts. Theres only one subscale prototype module up so far. Genesis 2 is due to go up in a few months.

ta

Ralph

smitty5000 wrote:

Not true my friend. What about Bigalow and his economy hotels in Space. He already has two of them orbiting at 300 miles up in space. The Genesis I and II. They are building them in a plant in North Las Vegas, NV and they are for real and they are of a new and inovative design. You can find info on: http://www.bigelow.com or on my blog at: http://moni2.blogspot.com

Genesis 2, initially scheduled for late 2006, Bigelow Aerospace and their launch provider have decided not to obligate their staffs to be away from home over the December and early January holidays. So they have a new approximate launch time frame of the last week of January.

I think one of the problems that dependence on government money has caused us is this idea that we have to turn non-space people into space nuts before we can get the critical mass necessary to get us there. I'm willing to bet that the majority of people who post here do not play golf. But the golf industry is huge and supports golf courses in some pretty interesting places and has even attempted to purchase time on the ISS for a golf promotional add by one of the Russian members.

What you want to do is create a way for those who are motivated to a) participate directly and b) spend more of their own money on things they personally want. Sadly, U.S. securities law makes it very difficult for non-qualified investors to participate in any emerging industry. That leaves donations (which are very difficult for companies to receive) and purchasing products. Figure out a way to get all of those motivated sci-fi fans who are already predisposed to space to actually pony up a few bucks and you could easily dwarf NASA's budget.

The gist of the article is that you really don't have to get everyone to be a space nut. We already have enough of them to make things happen if you could just organize them politically and economically.[/url]

I tend to not care because while it would be exciting, it seems like more of a leisure-past time thing. Most of the science-related things we learn from space are done by government, although having private industry do research there too is cool.

In terms of additional resources or living space, I don't think it's that viable because it's not a short term solution (resource and tech wise) nor a long term one (we'll run out of available resources, social management of overpopulation is better).

I am not that sure if the people don't care - just this moment a new article has been published uner www.welt.de which is trying to provide a widespread overview about the business of personal spaceflight.

The article starts to talk about Blue Origin, then mentions Virgin Galactic as well as Space Adventures. After those three Armadillo Aerospace and Bigelow Aerospace are talked about in short.

Not all is correct - it is said for example that Mike Melville has returned to Earth by parachute (being inside SSO which can be concluded from the text) - but the article shows up the interest and importancy the topic is considred to have: The article is more than two pages long while usual articles are shorter.

What will be interesting for the readers of the article: Jeff Bezos is said to have said that he wants to explore the Moon and the Planets abd that he intends to colonize space.

According to this article the Russians can't even get enough civilians to apply for a job as cosmonaut to fill the next training class. The reason given is that the pay is too low!

Meanwhile here in the U.S., there's no doubt that interest in space has declined since the glory days of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. The novelty factor just isn't there any more, which I suppose was all that kept most people interested. We who have a romantic attraction to the idea of space travel are a small minority, it would seem.

I do think novelty was the reason Apollo was so popular, and the reason its popularity fell sharply after the first landing. The first expeditions to the poles, or mount Everest, got a lot of press, but nobody cares now because it isn't novel any more.